Jacking Up The 4C

One of the first things we did when we got our Alfa 4C was to assess how to jack the thing up without jacking it up. Upon pulling the diffuser and engine tray, it became apparent that like the Lotus, there is not a real good way to jack up the rear of the car without destroying something. The way the diffuser and engine tray bolt up to the car leaves an air gap between the thin pieces of metal and the structure of the rear subframe. If you simply put a jack on the diffuser and lifted the rear of the car, you would successfully lift the wheels off the ground only after you crushed the diffuser and engine tray...

Luckily, I have no pictures of Alfa damage.
So here is a picture to remind you to pay attention to how you lift your car!

The solution to this problem is a simple one, all you need to do is fill in the gaps between the panels and the subframe. We happened to have some stuff laying around the shop to prototype this concept. The first air gap is about 0.25" between what I will call the subframe extension bit for lack of the official term. This plate is bolted to the subframe and by way of rivet nuts, provides the places for the diffuser and engine tray to bolt to. We cut out a 5" x 5" square of 0.25" plastic to take up this gap.

Here you can see the 0.25" piece of plastic we placed between the subframe and the plate.
It sits flush once put in place properly.

The second gap is between the engine tray and the plate pictured above. This air gap measures about 0.125". We cut a 2"x 9" rectangle from some 0.125" plastic and used some double sided tape to fix it to the engine try. 

The black part is the piece we added.

Everything bolts back together just like stock and you can not tell this stuff is there. However, now you can jack up the rear of your car easily.  Our flatJACKS are the perfect way to then stabilize the car so you can safely work on it.

As indicated by the above picture, we will make a kit available for those who want to do this mod. We posted the details in this blog for the DIY crowd to make their own.